Calls travel via WLANs

Momentum builds behind products offering voice over WLANs

More vendors are promoting the concept of carrying voice over wireless LANs (WLANs), and Mitsubishi's IP Talk subsidiary is set to deliver a mobile handset in Japan to support voice over IP (VoIP), web browsing and email via Wi-Fi access points.

Corporate users in open-plan environments could use the handset to make voice and data calls, and their employers might benefit from economies through the use of a single device and possible savings on call costs, said IP Talk.

Cisco was due to ship a similar phone, the 7920, costing $595 (£370) in June. Meanwhile, voice-over-WLAN specialist SpectraLink has been providing solutions for a number of years.

Although Wi-Fi handsets are designed primarily as a method of carrying voice calls over internal networks through 802.11b access points, firms that use the phones to connect to an IP private branch exchange (PBX) may be able to save money by routing call traffic over the internet.